Moving deeper inside of herself: a case of Pearl

by Peter Tumminello

The patient is a 45 year old woman who has
two teenage children. She tells about the situation around the death of her
father-in-law; her husband’s reaction to the death and his concerns about his
mother.

“I am losing myself, losing my feeling of
being centered. I realise that I have come a long way and I don’t want to lose
my centre. I feel I am losing my soul; I am losing what I am! I start to shut
down; it feels like the heart centre and the throat closes down. I don’t want
to be around my husband, I don’t know how to deal with this. Do I want to deal
with this! I am fearful, running away. I have dreams of being totally alone and
homesick for the real home, where you don’t have the limitations of Earth. The
homesickness is set off by any simple but special experience, for instance
seeing someone’s grief or feeling great pain, and immersing myself in the
feeling.”

“I am reminded of a time when I was 14; I
was looking forward to a school dance but my ballet teacher wouldn’t let me go
because I was required to go to a ballet class. I was denied fun and
light-heartedness. I was closing down in order to do the right thing; what I
wanted wasn’t important.”

Physical: she complained of a gluggy
feeling in her throat, a strong lump in her throat. She has been putting on
weight in the last few weeks. She has developed an aversion to vegetables and
greens in the last six months, and she desires curries and rice+++, as well as
ginger and lemon tea, which helps relieve her indigestion.

Analysis:
Her loss of centre and being true to herself immediately drew me to Pearl as a remedy. This
Phosphorus-like sensitivity to another’s feeling world is typical of Pearl. The idea was
supported by her feelings of being ‘totally alone.’ The homesickness made me
think of Calcium carbonicum and with the spiritual accent, I realised that the
higher vibration of the substance of the Pearl
was in order. The strong need for security together with the expressed desire
to find oneself and be true to it, is an inner conflict typical of Pearl.

Prescription: Pearl immersion 200C for three
days.

Follow-up:After eight weeks, she reports that the feeling of shutting down and losing her
centre had disappeared. Gone, too, are
the feeling of homesickness for the ‘real home’ and her physical symptoms. “I
am more in touch with the real me, operating from my truth rather than
reacting.” In the course of the following two years, she took the remedy several
times, as needed, during periods of tiredness or insecurity. During that time,
her relationship with her husband and her needs from him changed. “I stopped
one morning and thought ‘what do I really want out of this relationship?’ I
realised that I didn’t resent the time he spends with his mother; I admire him
for taking such good care of her. I realised that my resentment came from a
fear that he would leave me, a deep-seated insecurity. It was because he wasn’t
meeting all my needs for reassurance, the feeling that I am important to him
and him to me.” She is increasingly able to voice her feelings and to speak
what is truly inside her, even if that means becoming angry and irritable at
times. She became able to draw her boundaries and state her expectations with a
family member who had been taking advantage of her goodwill and that of her
husband, something she would never have done in the past. This is reminiscent
of the “irritation” of the pearl, coming into being as a grain of sand that
irritates the oyster. Eventually, she began to help others in need, especially
those who were depressed.